Paul Cain - The Paul Cain Omnibus

He sat down, gestured with his head for the girl to come in and close the door. She closed the door and stood with her back to it, staring at him questioningly.

He said: “Charley was shot to death in the Montecito Apartments on West Eighty-second, some time around eight-thirty tonight.”

Lorain Rigas put her hand out slowly, blindly a little way. Her eyes were entirely blank. She went slowly, unsteadily to a chair, and sank into it.

Shane said: “They’re holding the McLean gal — an’ they’ve found out that Charley and I had an argument this evening — they want to talk to me. They’re on the way over to pick me up.”

He glanced at his watch. It was nine-forty. He got up and went to the table, took a cigar from the humidor lighted it. Then he went to the window and stared out into the darkness.

“One — base of brain. One — slightly lower — shattered cervical.” The autopsy surgeon straightened, tossed the glittering instrument into a sterilizer and skinned off his rubber gloves. He glanced at Shane, turned and started towards the door.

Sergeant Gill and an intern turned the body over.

Gill said: “Rigas?” looked up at Shane.

Shane nodded.

Gill spread a partially filled out form on the examining table near Rigas’ feet, took a stub of pencil from his pocket and added several lines to the form. Then he folded it and put it in his pocket and said: “Let’s go back upstairs.”

Shane followed him out of the room that smelled of ether and of death; they went down a long corridor to an elevator.

On the third floor they left the elevator and crossed the hall diagonally to the open door of a large office, went in. A tall, paunched man with a bony, purplish face turned from the window, went to a swivel chair behind the broad desk and sat down.

He said: “How come you stopped by tonight, Dick?” He leaned back, squinted across the desk at Shane.

Shane shrugged, sat down sidewise on the edge of the desk. “Wanted to say hello to all my buddies.”

“You’re a damned liar!” The tall man spoke quietly, impersonally. “A couple of my men were on the way over to pick you up when you showed up here. You were tipped, an’ I want to know who it was — it don’t make so much difference about you, but that kind of thing is bad for the department.”

Shane was smiling at Gill. He turned his head to look down at the tall man silently. Finally he said: “What are you going to do, Ed — hold me?”

The tall man said: “Who tipped you to the pinch?”

Shane stood up, faced the tall man squarely. He said: “So it’s a pinch?” He turned and started towards the door, spoke over his shoulder to Gill: “Come on, Sarge.”

“Come here, you bastard!”

Shane turned. His expression was not pleasant. He took two short, slow steps back towards the desk.

The tall man was grinning. He drawled: “You’re hard to get along with — ain’t you!”

Shane didn’t answer. He stood with one foot a little in advance of the other and stared at the tall man from under the brim of his dark soft hat. The flesh around his eyes and mouth was very tightly drawn.

The tall man moved his grin from Shane to Gill. He said: “See if you can find that Eastman op.”

Gill went out of the room hurriedly. The tall man swung a little in the chair turned his head to look out the window. His manner when he spoke was casual, forced:

“The McLean girl killed Rigas.”

Shane did not move or speak.

“What did you and him fight about tonight?” The tall man turned to look at Shane. His hands were folded over his broad stomach and he clicked his thumbnails nervously.

Shane cleared his throat. He said huskily: “Am I under arrest?”

“No. But we’ve got enough to hold you on suspicion. You’ve sunk a lot of dough in Rigas’ joint and so far as we know you ain’t taken much out. Tonight you had an argument...”

The tall man unclasped his hands and leaned forward, put his arms on the desk. “Why don’t you help us get this thing right instead of being so damned fidgety?” He twisted his darkly florid face to a wry smile.

Shane said: “Rigas and I had an argument about money — I left his place at eight o’clock and I was in my hotel at a quarter after. I was there until I came here.” He went forward again to the desk. “I can get a half-dozen people at the hotel to swear to that.”

The tall man made a wide and elaborate gesture of deprecation. “Hell, Dick, we know you didn’t do it — and it’s almost a natural for McLean. Only we thought you might help us clean up the loose ends.”

Shane shook his head slowly, emphatically.

Sergeant Gill came in with an undersized blond youth in a shiny blue serge suit.

The young man went to the desk, nodded at Shane, said: “H’ are you, Cap?” to the tall man.

The tall man was looking at Shane. He said: “This man” — he jerked his head at the youth — “works for Eastman. He was on an evidence job for Mrs Rigas and went in with the patrolman when Rigas was shot...”

“Yes, sir” the youth interrupted. “The telephone operator come running out screaming bloody murder an’ the copper come running down from the corner an’ we both went upstairs” — he paused, caught his breath — “an’ there was this guy Rigas, half in the bedroom and half out, an’ dead as a doornail... The gun was on the floor, and this dame, McLean, was in pajamas, yelling that she didn’t do it.”

The tall man said: “Yes — you told us all that before.”

“I know — only I’m telling him.” The youth smiled at Shane.

Shane sat down again on the edge of the desk. He looked from the youth to the tall man, asked: “What does McLean say?”

“She’s got a whole raft of stories.”

The tall man spat carefully into a big brass cuspidor beside the desk. “The best one is that she was asleep and didn’t wake up till she heard the shots — and then she turned on the lights an’ there he was, on the floor in the doorway. The outer door to the apartment was unlocked — had been unlocked all evening. She says she always left it that way when he was out because he was always losing his key, an’ then he could come in without waking her up.” Shane said: “What was she doing in bed at eight-thirty?”

“Bad headache.” Sergeant Gill took a .38 automatic from the drawer of a steel cabinet, handed it to Shane. “No fingerprints,” he said — “clean as a whistle.”

Shane looked at the gun, put it down on the desk.

The tall man looked at the youth and at Gill, then bobbed his head meaningly towards the door. They both went out. The youth said: “So long, Cap — so long, Mister Shane.” Gill closed the door behind him.

Shane was smiling.

The tall man said: “Rigas’ wife had these Eastman dicks on his tail — she got anything to do with this?”

“Why?” Shane shrugged. “She wanted a divorce.”

“How long they been having trouble?”

“Don’t know.”

The tall man stood up, stuck his hands in his pockets and went to the window. He spoke over his shoulder: “Didn’t you and her used to be pretty good friends?”

Shane didn’t answer. His face was entirely expressionless.

The tall man turned and looked at him and then he said: “Well — I guess that’s all.”

They went out together.

In the corridor Shane made a vague motion with his hand, said: “Be seeing you,” went down two flights of stairs and out the door to the street. He stood in the wide arch of the entrance, out of the rain, looked up and down the street for a cab. There was one in front of a drugstore six or seven doors up from the Police Station; he whistled, finally walked swiftly up to it through the blinding rain.